I saw a ton of reviews calling Ghost of Tsushima the most beautiful game ever made. Now, I was pretty skeptical. We live in a time where good graphics is a must for open world games. So what is it that makes people keep calling it beautiful?
If there's one thing you notice when playing as Jin Sakai, there's an overwhelming amount of foliage and nature wherever you go. The clever use of wind as a directional pin for missions adds to the experience. Jin is constantly surrounded by nature as he journeys across the islands of Tsushima. Different parts of the island will yield different effects. When you start off in the south of the islands, Jin experiences a lot of forests, rocky areas, and open fields of pampas grass. As you make your way up, you start to see different environments like marshes and snow.
I'll say upfront that I do not feel that Ghost of Tsushima is "the" most beautiful game ever made. I just feel that there are other games with beautiful worlds as well. Running through fields of pampas grass just isn't enough to define the greatest beauty, but it can leave you feeling breath-taken when you reach scenic spots. Part of the reason I feel this way is because I take traversing in nature for granted in most games. I personally feel Witcher 3: Wild Hunt does a great job of creating beautiful environments and this is a game published in 2014 that still holds up. You have the swampy Velen, a bustling Novigrad, and a stark Kaer Morhen. Fighting a water hag in Velen may not be the most scenic route and neither is seeing the hanging corpses on your way to Crow's Perch, but CDPR did a damn good job creating these settings. Red Dead Redemption 2 does a great job creating a very realistic feeling Wild West with the small towns and nature. Riding on the horse doesn't feel like a chore because you can lavish in the landscape with rocky mountains as your backdrop.
It's important to note that each game is designed with a certain aesthetic and approach in mind. The vast stretches of greenery you see in Ghost of Tsushima is a very stylistic choice. Going for realism was not the goal for the developers. I argue that the use of heavy use of greenery and flowers is to connect to Japan's longstanding tradition of reverence for nature. When the Mongols cut down forests and burned villages to the ground, Jin will comment angrily on how the Mongols have destroyed nature in their home. Considering that Shinto is Japan's most popular religion, Jin's interaction with certain animals certainly reflects that. When Jin encounters the slaughtering of foxes, he views this as a desecration of the gods given that foxes are messengers of the gods. Overall, Ghost of Tsushima's environment design lends itself to the game because the overwhelming amount of nature and foliage is crucial to the stealth element of the game as well as the aesthetics. The wind is used as a directional indicator to save the time from switching to a map and eliminates the use of a HUD.
Ghost of Tsushima boasts a very impressive Photo Mode which certainly adds to the beauty of the world. You can easily spend lots of time tweaking your in-game shots to look photogenic. The ability to create an animation with a soundtrack in the built-in Photo Mode is also a big plus. Their version of a Photo Mode is more expansive in options than other games. You can control the time, weather, the type of foliage, what type of wind, and a couple more things. Probably the best thing of all is the decision to keep animation on or off. This way you can make your own moving photobook gallery if you'd like.
Ghost of Tsushima is definitely a fun game. Side quests are often meaningful to the main storyline. I don't care for Jin's collection of headbands, but the creation of haikus each time is important. It's basically Jin's downtime to recollect his thoughts while still on his mission to purge the Mongols from his home. It's also a great time for the player to indulge in Japanese culture during gameplay. This also includes each time Jin discovers a hot spring. It's a way for the character to reflect on the events of the story and in turn, gives a little more insight for the player how Jin is feeling during a particular event.
Perhaps the greatest beauty in the game is not in its physical renderings, but in the hard work the team at Sucker Punch had put together. Some ingrates online went as far as to criticize the game for not being 100% historically accurate attributing it to the fact that Sucker Punch is not a Japanese company. This was way back in 2020 when the game first launched. While it didn't feel entirely like a Japanese story, it was still a good one. I can't put my finger on what makes it "un-Japanese", but I can't deny that the developers did a lot of research. This game was an ode to all things Japanese from the perspective of an outsider. The culture was handed with much respect and did not in any way feel tacky or stereotypical. I did notice that a few names used in the English dub were changed in the Japanese dub. I suspect this is one of those cases where there was a lack of cultural insight. The name "Fune" was changed to "Fuka" and I think it is because Fune is a strange name to give to someone. Fune (船) means "boat" in Japanese and the developers may have used it to reference the raiders and pirates in the story. Fuka on the other hand is a feminine Japanese given name.
The combat system in Ghost of Tsushima is a little different from the usual games I play. It took me a while to get used to it and when you start off with very little health and an underdeveloped skill tree, Hard Mode did pose a great challenge for me. However, it did force me to learn new move sets and I liked that the boss AI changes its attack strategy around how you play. This way, I don't go into the bad habit of spamming the same button or dodge only. It's very helpful to Parry often and obtain some legendary Armor Sets early in the game. I find that the Gosaku Armor Set was my favorite and I liked to stack the Staggering Charms. The soundtrack helps amplify the experience of combat by increasing the intensity especially if it's a boss fight.
The stealth element being a very important part of the Ghost's identity is very fun to operate. It does get a little buggy at times during assassination attempts from a higher altitude. Sometimes Jin will appear to "fly" to an enemy when he jumps from above when in reality, physics should not allow such a trajectory. In comparison to games like the Metal Gear Solid franchise where stealth is the key to gameplay, Ghost of Tsushima falls a bit short. Sometimes it feels way too easy to accomplish missions this way because the enemies can stay still in one spot without noticing you at all until the very last minute. This is unlike Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain where the enemy AI cleverly recognizes you even if you are far away making stealth more challenging to achieve. Stealth, I find, is one of those things that is hard to design, but if designed well greatly enhances the gaming experience.
There are 2 things I didn't like in the game. One is not having the lip flaps match the Japanese dubbing. Sucker Punch managed to hire several big-name seiyuu for dubbing which I applaud. Nakai Kazuya has dubbed a number of samurai characters in his seiyuu career and his voice really fits Jin. I just wished they had animated the Japanese dubbing instead of leaving it for the English subbing. The English voices are great to listen to as well. I recommend doing 2 full playthroughs, one in English and one in Japanese. The second thing I didn't like while playing is the various bugs you still encounter. If I didn't kill the falcons before I killed the Mongol soldiers, the game registers it as an ongoing fight. The falcon is nowhere to be seen and the only way to end the "fight" is to enter a new mission or fight to override it. Sometimes the Mongol soldiers get stuck in areas like cliffs and they can't quite "see" the player, but the AI overall is pretty good.
Now is it a beautiful game? Yes. There are many good things that I can appreciate. The story, the characters, the fights, all of these were highlights in my gameplay. I really liked how the story reached a climax at the end of Chapter 2 making the rest of Chapter 3 more dramatic and emotional. The use of Mythical Tales blends folklore with history and culture into the game. Now is it revolutionary and out of this world? I personally don't think it has reached jaw-dropping levels, but definitely something worth buying and trying out. It's still following a very familiar formula where you have the main quest and several side quests used as exploration. You don't necessarily have to complete all quests in order to complete the game and nor do you have to explore all of Tsushima. Not all quests are great as some can be boring and offer little loot. There is still some replay value after you complete the main story. Since I am the type of player to complete many side quests while the main story is ongoing, I tend to finish a majority of the side quests by the end of the game. Simply for this type of gaming style, I would recommend going for a NG+ immediately instead of lingering around to complete every single quest unless you want go fro completion trophies.
If you are someone that wants to live out a kind of Japanese historical fantasy, then this is the game for you. Of course, there are other fantasy-like games set in Japan like Sekiro and Nioh. Ghost of Tsushima is more player-friendly and the inclusion of an easy mode makes it more widely accessible. I recommend beginning on Hard Mode for gaming veterans. Unless you're very new to gaming or this type of genre, stick with Hard Mode. It gives you a good challenge and you learn to adjust your combat techniques. It's important to note that while Ghost of Tsushima can be classified as an open world game, it is not a sandbox game. You cannot get too creative in your combat and the most you can do is kick the enemy off a cliff.
I am anticipating a sequel or some sort of continuation to Ghost of Tsushima. This concept of a Ghost can be explored in other parts of Japanese history that involve samurai. I've already seen players suggest Sengoku era as that it one of the most popular settings for games, manga and anime. Since the Ghost is a lot like a shinobi, it wouldn't be too far fetched to suggest using historical shinobi-like figures like Fuma Kotaro and Hattori Hanzo. Since Ghost of Tsushima is not a highly romanticized retelling of samurai history, a story based on Sarutobi Sasuke or Yagyu Juubei would be unlikely, but I would be open to seeing them incorporated into a story as minor characters or cameos.
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